Hello and welcome back to another episode on the podcast. I am so excited you guys are loving this series. It's actually so fun to come up with these episodes and I pretty much just. Outline them in a notes app or I will talk into my phone while I'm driving'cause that's when all my ideas come to me. But anyway, you guys are eaten up, so I'm gonna give you what you want and I want to talk a little bit about drum roll please. I don't play the drums, obviously. Why inquiries are down and what that means. And everybody's freaking out right now about the possibility of another recession. Oh my gosh. As a millennial, I feel like I've lived through so many historical, dramatic events that I am done. I can't even explain to you. Yeah, if you've been born in the nineties I remember I was in fifth grade when nine 11 happened and they were like, Hey, so the twin towers exploded. Everybody has to go home. And I was 11. I was like, what do you mean the towers exploded? Floated. Look, it was less than a half a day y'all. We came in and I think we left in the middle of lunchtime, which was probably like 10:00 AM So yeah, crazy. And with all the talk of I don't know. I don't watch the news. I actually prefer to be a little delusional. I like to be a little out of the loop. It actually gives me all of my peace and sanity. If you agree, send me a DM so I know somebody else is in the same position as me, but yeah, I just, I'm not really a news girl. I used to watch the news all the time and I found myself getting depressed and I was like, huh, nope. No more. I can't hear about somebody's dog dying down the street in the city today. But anyways, yeah. So with all the talk about this recession talk and people being worried and a lot of times people that. Are not, my students are saying that couples aren't booking, couples are ghosting. They haven't had inquiries in months, which is a severe problem. And I think it's time to discuss it because I personally think the world itself is shifting, right? Couples, buyers, like in general, like the marketing, the business world as a whole is shifting and changing. I don't think it's necessarily just a wedding trend anymore. Now that the aftershocks of the pandemic have completely leveled out. I'm starting to think that our world is completely different. It will never go back to how it was in 2019, no matter how hard we try. I remember when there used to be like 24 hour stores open. How many of those are open now? I remember somebody on threads being like, does anybody remember being out, after 8:00 PM like it seems everything is closed around 9:00 PM anyway, so I just think the world itself is changing. I think the way people are buying is changing and yes, with all this like possibility of recession talk, I always notice that when the economy is changing, I've noticed that, of course, we notice the gas prices, but I also notice places like Aldi, or what was it? Dollar General, Dollar Tree, those places were increasing and like The non-essentials are closing down, for example, forever 21. It's going out of business. Is JC Penny going out of business or are they just going online? And I've noticed too, a lot of stores are going online because, nobody's really shopping in store like they used to and with Amazon taking over and pretty much anything online, taking over. I was gonna buy something and Walmart sometimes will have a same day delivery with no extra charge, which is insane. So it's like, why do I need to go to the store if I can have same day delivery if I just purchase in a half an hour? So things are changing. I think the way people are buying is evolving and one thing I do think is essential is weddings.'cause people, I think people are always gonna get married and I think people are always going to value photography. And we all know that the 2% of the world, the people who are wealthy, are not affected by the things that all of us average people are affected by. So I personally don't believe that if you're in the high end market, you're going to struggle because the rich usually get richer in a recession. I was watching about investments and stocks and how they're investing and how they capitalize on the 2008 crash and all of these other things they're actually getting wealthier and they're smarter about the way they spend their money, and they make their money work for them. I don't know if we're going into a recession, but I do know the way that people are buying is different. I am aware of that. I do think the way that even us we're shopping has changed and thinking about, like even the restaurants we go to, I have to make sure that there's a. Certain amount of five star ratings. If there are way too many one star, I'm not leaving my house for that. No. I would rather just have takeout someplace that I know and trust already than having to try something new. But that's just me personally. I don't think that's actually affiliated with this entire conversation. But that being said is yes, things are changing. Okay. And I just wanted to address it and say, I know that inquiries are down, but. In my program right now, we still have girls booking. we still have girls getting featured. So I'm wondering if that seven K and above tier is actually doing just fine. I don't know. Or maybe it's just my girls because they have all the marketing strategies, Which leads me to my topic today is how to attract, align, dream wedding couples right now. And so the first thing I wanna talk about is how we are approaching social media or any kind of fast paced marketing platform is that there is this thing that I have created on my own Called the creator versus consumer rule. And so that means is that I want you to approach social media specifically Instagram as a creator versus a consumer, because if you approach it as a consumer, then you're always gonna be imbalanced. You're always gonna have the comparison trap. You're always gonna be stuck. And then because you're ingesting so much content, you're actually crippling your own creativity, and so you're not going to be able to post anything. This is what I've come up with in terms of the creator role. So creator would essentially be somebody who's posting, who's engaging, who's sharing behind the scenes and then gets off the app without an emotional attachment to it being like, this is where my people are. I'm having conversations, I am posting awareness. I'm getting visibility. I'm encouraging awareness with my brand, and then moving on to the next thing that you need to get off your plate versus a consumer who is constantly on Instagram, scrolling indefinitely, rotting in bed, and then stuck in the comparison trap of comparing your work to somebody else. Comparing what you're charging to, what someone else is charging, comparing styles, looking for trends. And while I think trends are important,'cause I do think that it's a part of market research, I think that if you're constantly doing it, then it's not good for you. Which is why I am a little hesitant even when I'm teaching about market research because you can get so caught up in the research that your first instinct will be to research something before you do something or take action. And I believe that's just no way for a CEO to act. So how to get out of the comparison trap essentially is to remember that. The internet is fake and I mean that in the kindest way possible that everything that we post is curated. I can even share some stuff with you right now. Like I don't always post my kids. Every once in a while I'll post something cute and funny that I think people will like and think that people will resonate with because. People love that real authentic content, but even my real authentic content is curated. If my son was saying something silly, I'm not gonna post the full two minute audio, maybe more of a ten second audio and the ten second audio That I think is the funniest versus sharing the entire thing. So in a sense, that is carefully curated, whereas people will do a photo dump, but they're not gonna share the bad stuff. They're only gonna share the good stuff because nobody wants to be. I always wanna say this, I hope nobody's name is Nancy, but a negative Nancy. And you're just, you're looking at the 1% of someone's life and you're looking at the 1% of maybe their best content. And also after TikTok was quote unquote gonna get taken down. I realize that influencers lie. And they lie a lot because the confessions that have come from them being like since TikTok is gonna be deleted tomorrow, I'm just gonna let you know this isn't my house. Or I don't even eat the food that I take videos of. Or I actually, insert Mistruth here, right? I already know that everything on social media isn't real because when you're a photographer you know that we design our own flat lays and we do pose our couples, or if you've been in a shoot or if you've ever worked with models you know that everything is perfectly curated with the production team and then not everything is real for me. I learned that nothing is real. When I shot a wedding for a reality TV show, my first year of business and reality TV show is fake Like everything that happened, they pretty much sabotaged this girl's wedding, paid her$20,000. She was a teenager. And they were like, Hey, yeah, so we're gonna sabotage your wedding. Basically listen to everything that we tell you to do, but we're giving you 20 K. And so they did that and they initiated fights rumors. They've made the bride cry pretty much the whole day. And they would always have a script like. Oh my gosh. Your makeup artist messed up on purpose. What do you have to say to her if you could say something to her right now? And first of all, the makeup artist didn't mess up and they didn't mess up on purpose, and they actually called the makeup artist to fix the quote unquote makeup afterwards. So I was like, oh, wait a minute. Like you, no television's fake, but it was really fake. Oh, that's a whole tangent. But now you know. Like for me, I think that it's so easy for me not to get caught up in comparison.'cause I just know everything's curated. And the internet is fake. And that is my pedestal that I will stand on. So how to think like a creator instead versus getting caught up in the comparison trap of doom. Remember that you're using social media apps as a free marketing platform or any app that you're using other than your blog, because you're paying for that. You're using it as a free marketing platform, right? People wanna see the creator behind the scenes and they wanna get to know who they're hiring. So show up. People do care. If they didn't care, they wouldn't have followed you. You wouldn't have followers. You'd have zero followers, right? But people want to follow along. So what should you do? Show up, post something. Entertain us, make us laugh, or be yourself and we can see if we resonate or if we agree with you. It just helps you really get to know the creator. And I think wedding photographers have this better than any other industry ever because we literally get hired to be ourselves and photograph someone's day in our style. So the whole point is like differentiation and them making a connection with you, when Instagram stories launched because they were copying off a Snapchat. Yes. I have been around a long time. So when Instagram stories launched and I posted my daughter pretty much every day. She was only six months, she was laughing at something, she was crawling, getting stuck, eating something. Who knows, six months is, it's a wild, it was a wild time for me'cause my daughter crawled very early, so she'd been busy all her life and sharing that with people applying back, I had no idea were my future couples and they ended up booking me because they loved my daughter, guys. Now I do think the personal brand has shifted a lot more since then. It's not just posting your life and hoping people book you, but without being intentional. Me just showing up, being myself, sharing my ideas, sharing my daughter, and I don't suggest people do that now, and also to be fair, like homegirl was invited to three weddings and I, and we brought her, my husband would bring her, and he's like, I just don't know why I'm bringing her to this wedding. And I was like they asked for her to come to the reception. So they came and she was like, I think she stopped coming when she was like 18 months. But anyway, it works. This is proof about the personal brand guys. If people really make a connection with you and they feel like they know you and I, you don't have to be friends with your couples, but. I don't know. It worked for me. So share yourself. I was having a conversation with my web designer about this actually yesterday, and I just think if you just show up as yourself, you're good. It's not even that complicated. It's not even that hard. Just put something out there, whatever you're comfortable sharing, of course, and find ways to relate it back to business if possible, but that's the only way you're gonna make it, because as the industry grows, as business grows, as people come and go. They're gonna be comparing whoever they feel the closest to. Now, another thing you can do is just remember you get what you give. I have so many photographers that were booking intensives with me, and they were like, I'm not getting inquiries. And I'm like, okay. Are you marketing? No. Oh, okay. Why? Why not? And it's why am I not getting inquiries? I was like, okay, you expect everything to come to you with no effort. This is not what book have you read? This is, it's not that easy. It's not, we're not on cruise control. And if you are on cruise control, don't be upset if you get one inquiry a month. Honestly, like marketing is all about effort and it's just showing up. That's really all marketing is showing up. Putting your stuff out there, putting your best work out there, attracting those aligned dream couples with the best images that you have, with the best stories you can tell. and that's why in our signature wedding photography program, we teach you a tried and true four part marketing strategy. Which covers all grounds. It's not just, oh, post this on social media and you'll get bookings. It's not really that simple, but it is a nice deep dive strategy, it covers the whole marketing ball game. Yeah, but it does start with social media because that will be the easiest visibility and it's free. Now, if you wanna be an ads girly, that's fine. Go ahead. Pay for those bookings. I am behind it. But I do think before you pay for ads that we need to know if your strategy is gonna work. It's almost like you're wasting money if everything is not. Perfectly pieced together. Your message is clear. Your dream couple is clear. If you don't even know who Dream Couple is, please don't pay for ads because you don't know what you're gonna get. And then you're gonna be mad about what you get because you didn't know what you were putting out there. And even having no strategy is a strategy, right? It's just a scrappy one. And we just need to be more intentional also, don't give up. Okay? Don't give up. You have to learn to hype yourself up, which is why I think mindset is probably one of the most important things you can learn. Because if you don't have the strength and the mindset to really back your own self up, be your own height woman, it's gonna be difficult. And I don't know, I think maybe that's why our marketing challenge did so good. Like one of our students got six inquiries. One of'em booked three weddings. It was actually insane. And I was like, oh, so all you had to do was post every day for 30 days and you got six inquiries. Huh. That's amazing. And really all it was just positioning prompts That covered all of the sales psychology grounds because there's actually a process, and it's step by step to warm people up to who you are, what you offer, and why you, it's not as simple as curate your portfolio and you're gonna get dream couples. I mean, Maybe it could be, but if you take it a step further and really implement like a sales strategy behind it, and be very intentional and breadcrumb it as you go along, as you post in your stories, we'll just use Instagram as an example because apparently selling on Instagram has some, been something I've been doing for years and I just, I don't know. It works guys' let's see. My daughter was born in 2017, so I've been selling on stories unbeknownst to myself since 2017, and it works, and it's the easiest platform to get the hang of. Go all the way, invest all of your time into it just to challenge yourself and you might be surprised to figure out what you find. So if you loved this episode and you want more, don't forget to RSVP for my free masterclass how to book 10 K weddings this year on April 22nd at 12:00 PM Eastern, I am gonna be walking through a marketing campaign It's gonna be so fun. And you know me, I love a marketing campaign. I love data and statistics and strategies. And so I'm gonna break that apart for you and walk you through what that looks like and how having good marketing could really make or break your business. And just positioning your brain and thinking about things in a more. CEO way, all right. That's it for this episode. I hope this will help you get out of the comparison trap, and really understand how to approach marketing from a creator versus a consumer path. All right. I will see you in next week's episode, And don't forget to RSVP for my class and I will see you soon. Bye.